Hello friends. My name is Daquine, and I’m a trophy collector. Thank you for your kind applause. I am glad to be among those like myself. I’m happy that you all decided to join me. But some of you ask, what is that I am talking about? Well, I can tell you.

I speak to you of the Sony Playstation 3 trophy system. On the wonder that is the Playstation 3 gaming system, you have many games that you can play and enjoy. From Transformers, Street Fighter IV, to Burnout Paradise. Out of all the titles available on the PS3, quite a few of these games possess a set of achievements, or as they are called on Sony’s system, Trophies.

Trophies are achievements that you can obtain through playing games that are trophy-enabled. By obtaining a trophy, you have accomplished a specific task that the game has set for you to complete, thus earning you the bragging rights that trophy can bring. Each trophy-enabled game usually comes with a set amount of trophies you can win, ranging from about ten trophies per game purchased on the Playstation Network, to about fifty on a retail game.

In my case, I own a Playstation 3, and I own several games that have trophies. As of this writing, I have just over 850 trophies that I’ve managed to net in my Playstation 3 career. Of course, whether you find this a lot, this is a small amount of trophies. A few of the friends I have made through online gaming have accumulated over 2000 trophies for themselves. An accomplishment in deed. An amount that large certainly takes time, effort and dedication. One day, I don’t necessarily mean to get 2000+ trophies all around, but I would like to get a more substantial amount than 900 trophies.

And this is where this discussion turns to what I wanted to talk about. I am a trophy collector. As I said, I would love to obtain as many trophies as I can. For the longest time, I thought I enjoyed playing games, because of the fun and challenge of it all. I thought the story of each game I played was enough to keep me going. All though these points are true, trophies just add to the need, or should I say, want, to play these games.

Take for example, the game Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit. This was a game I started playing recently. The game in and of itself is quite enjoyable, with its great graphics, game play and great physics-based elements I’ve loved in my games. Although I’m only playing somebody else’s copy, I still love it.

I’ve played through many other games, that because of how the trophy system worked, I was able to play through those games multiple times to earn particular trophy. A big part of the reason I can get myself to go through the entire storyline of some games, are the trophies. Because I hadn’t been able to get them all the first time through, I wanted to continue with my game progression so I could nab up some more trophies, so I could show off to people my accomplishments. I would love to say, “Hey guys! Look! I have 100% of the trophies in the entire game!”

I would be able to beat the game, and complete challenges, and actually prove I did it. Back before the trophy system was introduced on the PS3, and before the Xbox’s Achievement system ever took hold on player’s hearts, there was really no way to prove that you complete certain challenges. Back in the days of the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES), Super Nintendo (SNES), Dreamcast, Sega Genesis, and even up through the more recent systems like the Nintendo Gamecube and Sony Playstation 2, there wasn’t such a specific way to prove that you had accomplished something in your game.

Granted, you had your save files you could show off to your friends, but it seems to me that there wasn’t such a concrete and simple way to show off your accomplishments to others, like there is with the trophy system, or the Xbox Achievements. Most of the time, especially back in the NES days where there were hardly any games out there that even had a save function so you could save your game. You could play your game for hours, finally beat it, and when you were done, all you could do was stare blankly at your television as you switched off your system, and all your hard work went down the tubes.

When games progressed finally to the point you could actually save your game, you certainly had more options to show off your hard work to others. The ability to save after you get that final weapon in the game, to gain that extra level, to get to that final stage, was finally here. But despite that, you would still have to put in each game and go through this tedious routine to show your friend your accomplishment. And if something happened to the game’s save file, or, to a gamer’s horror, the game cartridge itself, your work was, again, flushed down the toilet. Of course, it also means extra money you would have to shell out to re-purchase another copy of the game.

As we worked our way up to the memory card era of Gamecube, Playstation, and Dreamcast, you still had to go through the process of putting in each game and shuffle through game menus and the like to show off your work. I suppose you could say that was fixed with the Trophies and Achievements. You could finally show your stuff without the hassle. Finally.

I suppose it’s the ability to increase the number of trophies in my collection and really strut my stuff on my friends list. I guess really, it boils down to knowing that I have more goals to work on than what the game itself gives me. With all the challenges and fun that is to be had on your game, you know that with the addition of trophies, you have that much more to work on. I guess that’s really all it boils down to for me. Two things specifically. Being able to have more challenges to complete, and always increasing the number of trophies for myself. You could say that’s why I’m a trophy collector.